Radiographers' work celebrated in style

BONES: Final year radiography students Sasha Smith and Jess Healy celebrate World Radiography Day with Chester the Skeleton and the rest of the medical imaging department staff at the Southland Hospital.

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Finding false teeth, beer bottle caps, coins, toys and gun shot pellets inside the human body are all in a day's work for Southland radiographers.

It is also a job that is about more than broken bones.

In the modern age, the traditional radiographer has evolved to become a medical radiation technologist (MRT) and produces medical images of the body using radiation, ultrasound or magnetic fields.

Southland Hospital clinical director of medical imaging Dr Josie Parker said radiologists and radiographers helped diagnose many injuries, complaints and illnesses and set patients on the pathway to recovery.

Yesterday was World Radiography Day and Dr Parker said the important work radiographers in Southland's public and private organisations undertook deserved to be recognised.

At the Southland Hospital, the medical imaging department staff were celebrating, with Chester the Skeleton, the 117th anniversary of Wilhelm Rontgen's discovery of X-rays on November 8, 1895.

Southland Hospital ultrasonographer Bernadette Gourley said nearly 80 per cent of the hospital's patients went through the medical imaging department.

Working as a medical radiation technologist was rewarding and also interesting, she said.